HAITIAN ART BEFORE AND AFTER 1944 AND DEWITT PETERS

Introductory comment from Bob Corbett, December 2001

The items below are from a discussion which too place on the Corbett
Haiti discussion forum in December 1997. I seem not to have all of
the posts, but the setting was the first comment from Michel-Rolph Trouillot which challenged the notion that Haitian art sort of began with the "discovery"
of Hector Hyppolite by Dwight Peters. Much of Haitian art history seems
to sound like that.

A quick addition to the issue of Haitian art before 1944. The Lycee
Petion had art classes as early as 1816 so did Henry Christophe's national
schools in the north. More important, Henry I opened a full-fledged
specialized art academy.

The story that Haitians had to wait for Mr. Peters to discover their
hidden talent is just one more story of arrogance.

I'd like to concur and expand on Rolph Trouillot's earlier statement
about the arrogance of those who profess that "Haitians had to wait
for Mr. Peters to discover their hidden talent." I'm satisfied,
having recently reviewed a number of art pages on the world wide web,
that this attitude is still current among many gallery owners and
dealers of Haitian art. In contrast, a number of Haitian artists
initially involved with the Centre d'Art have stated emphatically that
they knew quite well what they were doing, and that they did not join
the Center to learn how to paint but mostly to avail themselves of the
supplies and tools available there and of the opportunity to get a
"good price" for their works. The main contribution of the Centre
d'Art, some have said, was that it brought Haitian art face to face
with the mighty dollar. Three factors ought to be considered in that
confluence:

The decade of Indigenisme prior to the founding of the Centre
d'Art had finally reconciled Haitians with their African heritage;

The "anti-superstition" campaign waged in the 1940s by the
Catholic Church and the Lescot regime had helped secularize Haitian
art by destroying the places of worship that Haitian folk artists
used to decorate for a living;

The introduction of American tourism, championed by the Estime
government, brought together a significant number of direct buyers
and sellers for the first time.

DeWitt Peters was a minor American artist who came to Haiti in 1943 as
part of an English teaching project instituted by the Lescot
government. Later that year, Peters wrote to the ministry of
education that he was opting out of teaching because he felt he could
be "of more service in the movement to establish a school of painting
here in Port-au-Prince." Also part of that movement were prominent
figures in Haiti's intellectual, cultural and government circles,
including Jean Price-Mars, Albert Mangones, Maurice Dartigue, Georges
Remponeau and Gerald Bloncourt. Peters spent some of his own money
($2,000) for the opening of the Centre d'Art, but the Haitian
government paid most of the salaries and running expenses, including
the monthly rent. The letter head for the new organization
proclaimed: "LE CENTRE D'ART, Sous le Haut Patronage du Departement de
l'Instruction Publique et de l'Institut Haitiano-American."

Sometime in July 1944, Horace Ashton, Cultural Attache at the U.S.
Embassy, sought to tie the Centre d'Art exclusively to the
Haitian-American Institute, of which he was a Councilor. The
Institute itself had been founded by Elie Lescot in 1942. Haitian
critics claimed that it fared so poorly under Ashton's leadership that
the Haitian government had to coerce its employees who had resided or
studied at some point in the U.S. to enroll as members. In a letter
of protest to Peters against Ashton's hegemonic ambitions, Albert
Mangones, then General Secretary of the Centre's Administrative
Committee, reaffirmed that the Centre d'Art was "a Haitian institution
of artists, founded by the artists and for the artists." Peters, to
his credit, sided with Mangones and the Haitian members of the
administrative committee.

Everything then, from the flourishing of Haitian art in the 19th and
early 20th centuries, to the artists' mastery over their craft, and to
the influential role of Haitian official and cultural figures in the
founding of the Centre d'Art, would tend to dispel the myths of "1944"
as the moment of creation and of Peters as the "father" of Haitian
art. But some myths have a peculiar life of their own.

Another facet of the arrogance in question is the attitude common to
many dealers and collectors of Haitian art that all Haitian art
begins and ends with the "primitive." Such an attitude assumes that
Haitian art is unable to evolve into more complex forms and that
Haitian artists do not have anything of value to reveal to the world.
All the major exhibitions of Haitian art of the last twenty years have
safely confined themselves to the world of the "primitive," peopled by
fantasies and images from the spirit world. This is especially true
of Jonathan Demme's lavish show at the Equitable and of the upcoming
"Sacred Art of Haitian Vodou" at the Museum of Natural History. U.S.
collectors and dealers ultimately control the market for Haitian art,
and are stifling the growth of a younger generation of Haitian and
Haitian-American artists whose works often embody newer forms and a
less escapist vision of the Haitian experience. Fifty years after the
opening of the Centre d'Art, Haitian art is unfortunately still caught
in a shadowy world of foreign arrogance, greed, ignorance and racism.

I have been waiting for a thread like this for the longest time. I would like
to begin by saying that I am in full agreement, maybe if there is a state more
than full I am in ecstatic agreement with the calling out of the arrogance of
the idea of the Renaissance in Haiti. Mr. Simidor's points about materials
and the opportunities to use them were particularly well-taken. But at the
same time I want to destroy certain scapegoats that usually get called up in a
discussion like this; namely the focus on self-taught artists being the reason
for the stifling of emerging trained artists.

I should probably begin by introducing myself. I am a writer, poet, and
circumstantially a co-owner with my wife of Cavin-Morris gallery in New York
City. When we began we were probably one of five true galleries working with
self-taught artists in the United States. I emphasize the word 'gallery'
because most places that sell this kind of art (through their own choosing)
are shops or stores that are less interested than we are in developing
individual artistic careers and demonstrating the depth of cultures than in
just exposing the work. This is not a critical statement but a defining of
purpose. From the very beginning we were aware of the political and cultural
depth and politically correct minefield of the art were showing. We began
with Haitian but soon began to show some of the work by artists from the
American South, both African-American and white. We toned that down after a
while because of the shocking way the artists were treated. We decided that
if we could not work with an artist directly on the same 50/50 basis we work
with trained artists on we weren't interested. I published a number of
politically charged articles in smaller art journals warning of the dangers
and even comparing it to the situation in Haiti. Part of the way I see things
may have to do with the fact that I grew up in a household where little
differentiation was made between the Hyppolites and Liautauds my father bought
directly from the artists in the 40 through the 70s and the works by trained
artists that hung on our walls. I realize this probably skewed my
appreciation permanently in a positive way.

I recently spent some time in Jamaica and wound up curating a show at the
State University in Winston-Salem on the self-taught artists of Jamaica.
Half-way through my research I began to see things about Haiti, the US and
Jamaica and (I have no doubt about other places) that had been previously
ignored in art history precisely because of this 'renaissance' mentality and a
healthy dose of jingoism in each country, namely that each felt these artists
were a unique phenomenon to each country. I began to compile a list and
realized that in a thirty year period ( an artificial timespan at best) over
fifty major self-taught artists were working simultaneously and had never been
seen or shown together before. Mr. Simidor mentions Indigenisme as a factor,
there was also Marcus Garvey's teaching, Negritude, the Harlem Renaissance
(equally misnamed), the disillusionment of the world wars, the international
bridges created by various musics, the Civil right movement in the US, the
Mau-Mau rebellion, and on and on. Because Haiti was a tourist spot many
collectors managed to buy the work and ignore the content. I know that
certain artists were asked to veer away from some of the Vodou content in
order to sell better. But I want to make a sidereal point here: Many of those
who bought the Haitian self-taught artists probably didn't and don't care or
know about contemporary art. They bought these paintings as something
separate. The problem this creates is that, as in Jamaica, there was no
gallery system of strength to promote the trained artists. The fact that the
self-taught artists dominated the field does NOT belittle the importance of
their work. The crime is that the trained artists were and are treated as
patronizingly as the untrained artists were and are.

Haiti, Jamaica, and the US have incredibly deep and rich sources for their
self-taught artists. The trained artists have the problem of not competing
with the self-taught artists but of trying to fix a place for themselves in
the art market at large which is sexist and racist and has always been. To
blame the collectors begs the real question. You cannot fault people who want
to specialize. You can criticize their judgment and knowledge on a case by
case basis but collecting is a thing of personal choice. You cannot blame the
collector of Surrealism for not collecting the Minimalists. The art system
itself is at fault here not the collectors. The concept of 'primitive' is an
outmoded one and an inherently racist one as is the concept of 'outsider'.
But roots are roots. Blues are the blues. There are those who want to hear
Robert Johnson and cannot begin to comprehend Coltrane.

Demme's show was not lavish. It wasn't even a pretence at a history of
Haitian art. It was an essence of one man's collection for better or for
worse. To put it down because it showed Vodou is not a valid criticism. It
also showed some of the younger artist's political pieces. Even work by self-
taught artists evolves over time. It is important that we understand the
distinction. The art made today is not the art made in the forties. You say
dealers and collectors control the art market. Where anywhere in the world is
it otherwise. I have seen those websites. They are often ridiculous and
self-congratulatory but they are not where you should be looking for
contemporary trained artists. This is the lesson learned in the whole 'fad'
of Latin-American art a few years ago. Those who remained ghettoized in
'Latin-American galleries' were often lost to sight; those who for whatever
reason found themselves working with mainstream galleries are still around.
It isn't just Haitian art that is caught "in a shadowy world of foreign
arrogance, greed, ignorance and racism" it is all art. There is incredible
genius in the Caribbean that needs gallery outlets. They also need gallery
systems in their own countries that are NOT tourist oriented but then the
problem becomes one of who will buy it. Look at Jamaica where trained and
untrained are viewed simultaneously. The system is even more advanced than
here in the US. And there still is an inadequate gallery system. Self-taught
artists are enormously important and despite their 'sales' have still not been
adequately entered into art history. The trained artists have a gargantuan
enough battle without basing their real problems on collectors of self-taught
artists.

As for dealers,,, sigh. Where to even begin. In my experience dealers are
shaped by collectors. In Haiti most are not dealers but shopkeepers as they
are here in the US. ( I am speaking of dealers of self-taught artists). Look
at the individual dealers and be critical. They are mostly self-taught also.
The dealers of trained artists in Haiti were mostly driven out because they
could not make a living there. Some may be trying again. Again this can't be
blamed on the self-taught artists. Come to the Outsider fair here in New York
in January and look at the problem. The entire spectrum is represented there.
An African-American friend of mine who is a partially trained sculptor was
walking through the fair with his elderly father and family and people rushed
out of their booths to shake the old man's hand because they assumed he was an
old folk artist. He loved it because he thought they recognized him from when
he was a Civil Rights activist minister from Newark. The problem is
disgustingly pithy.

My last point for now and a summation is that the spirit world never went
away. It still buzzes around us. Vodou is a valid misunderstood religion.
One can't condemn subject matter. This is true in Jamaica, Cuba, and the US.
Cuba is a great example of spiritual concerns being manifested in contemporary
art without compromising the vision or the format. Look at Jose Bedia's work.

It is obvious then that we need a revisionist history of world art. It
happens on many levels; the local; the diaspora and then the ivory tower of
Contemporary. Part of the value of the Vodou exhibition was that it
demythologized the temporal falsehoods of the Haitian 'renaissance' and
demonstrated that a culture holds its aesthetics within its spiritual and
secular life all the time. We need a show like that for the US and for the
rest of the Caribbean. We ultimately are in complete agreement; the younger
trained artists as well as the older unrecognized ones of Haiti and the
Caribbean need exposure. But I am saying that their struggle is with the
canon at large and their success has to do with luck and the defeat of narrow-
mindlessness and racism and increased international exposure but not at the
expense of the necessary self-taught artists.

Thank you for the chance to say this and I hope this discussion continues.

I've been following the Haitian art posts with interest and care and
wish to address three areas:

The "Renaissance" concept

Primitive painting vs "self-taught" painters

Voodoo in Haitian art

Trouillot and Simidor are certainly correct that there was no
genuine "renaissaince" of Haitian art. Art was being created all along,
and nothing like the rediscovery of long lost art forms came through the
efforts of DeWitt Peters. However, I think they attack a straw man. I
sat down and began reading what various books and articles had to say
about Peters. (Rodman may well be the one major exception and the person
who is guilty of the "renaissance" fallacy.) The following quote is what
I would put forward as very typical of the many books in my library:

"Had it not been for DeWitt Peters, the American watercolorist
who came Haiti during World War II as a teacher of English, Haitian
art might not have acquired such worldwide recognition. In
opening the Centre d'Art school in Port-au-Prince, Peters proved
the catalyst behind the immense explosion of Haitian painting. He
recognized the wealth of native talent and realized that all that was
needed was a small push to make the visual arts in Haiti blossom
exuberantly.

"Naturally there were painters and sculptors on (sic) Haiti before the
nineteen forties. Hector Hyppolite and Philome Obin, two the
father figures of Haitian art, had painted all their lives. J.
Chiappini's Portrait of Toussaint Louverture was painted two years
before Peters established himself in Port-au-Prince and has long
been regarded as a masterpiece of Haitian art. For these artists
it was just a lucky coincidence that their lifetimes coincided with
the explosion of Haitian art. They had needed no outside catalyst,
but Peters' achievement ensured them a fame and success they
could never otherwise have attained."

I submit that despite the straw man descriptions this view is typical.
It recognizes that painting and good painting was going on, that Peters
was a catalyst who enabled painters to find materials and markets (which,
by the way, enabled a huge number of them to become full-time painters and
not part time ones who squeezed in their painting when they weren't
driving a cab or other hard work.

I'm not keen on Williams' several uses of the historical hypotheticals,
since he doesn't need them. We don't know what would have happened had
Peters never set foot in Haiti. But we do know what happened, and to
choose to act as though he was not a central causal figure in the rise
of Haitian painting belies all the facts. It seems a case where
political ideology gets in the way of and thus ignores what actually
happened in the world.

Randall Morris often uses the term "self-taught" painters to refer
to the Haitian painters. It is a fact that virtually all the "first"
generation painters of the 1940s boom in Haitian art were self-taught.
However, that term refers to the painters and not the style of painting.
There is nothing to prohibit a trained painter from adopting the naive or
primitive style (terms that refer to the genre, not the artist) of
painting. Many later Haitian "primitives" have indeed been formally
trained in classical art. In the gigantic book I quoted from are
paintings of primitive artists from many nations. If one just randomly
opened the book it would often be very difficult to say with any
conviction whether this was Haitian painting or painting from
elsewhere. I was just looking at some Chinese primitives which looked so
much like Haitian primitives save the one identifying feature, the
humans did have a "Chinese" look and not a Haitian one.

Randall Morris made this point too. In his post and in his recent book
on Jamaican artists he points out how incredibly similar are the
traditions within this particular genre.

Simidor seems to condemn this as a non-serious medium and that there is
some "higher" and "more serious" art form to be desired. I'm quite
suspicious of this distinction. Personally I find the simplicity of the
primitive painters able to lay bare essences more cleanly for me than
many of the more symbolic painters. This will differ with viewers. I am
a person who likes my evidence concrete and available, not hinted at and
speculative. Not everyone is like me, and I'm thrilled about that! But,
for me the primitive painters reveal an insight into the hard reality of
everyday life in everyday situations of common people. I don't see the
world of the great intellectuals and all that. Nor do I want to when I
go to the primitive painter. I want to see the world of the underclass
and the simple folks, as presented in their everydayness, not in some
analysis of their reality by intellectuals. Primitivism is, on my view,
a very respectable form of art and worthy of the attention it gets.

Simidor raises the difficult problem of the relation of the artist to the
market and wants to hold that the market drives the artist. I'm just not
too sure of this. Certainly in the Haitian case there is a strong argument
to say that many of these artists of the early days of the Centre d'Art
were very poor and there is no question that the attraction of the
market was powerful. Here, too, I think there is evidence that Rodman
was a major force, not Peters. In his little book on Haiti art (HAITI,
1959) Philippe Thoby-Marcelin, the famous novelist, tells of his
disenchantment with the directions the Centre d'Art began to take. He
was one of the founding fathers of the Centre, supporting Peters in 1943,
and listed as one of the directors. However, by 1959 he had broken with
the Centre and had this to say:

"Unfortunately, during the summer of 1950, as a result of
differences which I have no right to judge, a very important
group of artists, including Price, Lazard, Pinchinat, Dorcely,
Exume and Cedor, left the Centre to set up the Foyer des
Arts Plastiques.

"One of their main grievances centered around their feeling that
Peters, under the influence of Selden Rodman, was unduly favoring
the popular painters. [Corbett's note: most of these were
primitives] Moreover, it seemed unjust to them not to provide
for the younger ones of the popular painters an academic training
which would make artists of them in the true sense of the word
so that they might act as a bridge -- I use here the exact words
of Cedor, himself as ex-naif who had had some success outside the
country -- between the primitive experience ... and new forms
of expression which [would permit them] to translate [their]
feeling into a stylized realism." p. 11-12.

Thoby-Marcelin resigned his connection with the Centre d'Art and threw
his weight to the new group. I have no interest at this time in getting
into that particular debate. However, this is some evidence that Rodman
was playing a guiding and paternalistic role which both Trouillot and
Simidor condemn. However, on his side Thoby-Marcelin seems to buy into
the position which Simidor also echoes, that there is this "higher"
or "real" art and that primitivism is not a genre description as much as
a description of the nature of the art. I am one who does not accept that
designation, and with thousands who have reveled in the joy of Haiti
primitives, find extremely moving and satisfying art in the primitives
and not mere decoration (though I also not convinced that decoration is
such a wicked thing either!).

Lastly Voodoo in Haitian art. I have recently catalogued just over
5000 Haitian paintings which appear in art books. One of the categories
I am tracking is theme. Most of the painters I'm finding painted between
1944 and 1985 (they tend not to hit the books yet if they've painted later).
Nearly 50% of all these Haitian paintings are of Voodoo themes. Is that
surprising? Voodoo is the religion of the masses of Haitian people, and
many of these artists came from humble origins and practiced the Haitian
religion. Throughout the history of art religion is a dominant theme.
Could one even imagine the loss to art history if Hector Hyppolite and
Andre Pierre had not created their huge number of Voodoo masterpieces?
When I've had the chance to stand in front of a canvas of either of those
two and see a Voodoo painting, I have been profoundly moved, even shaken,
and I am not only not a believer in Voodoo, but a committed atheist. But
the power, spirit, transportation into a mystical world that simply leaps
from the canvass to my heart is overwhelming. Would this be done away
with to satisfy political aims? Such seems to me a disastrously
dangerous argument. More that just dangerous, an argument whose
consequences are so awful that it should be rejected out of hand.
But, would the critics argue it is the market and not faith that drives
them? Is it? I simply don't know. And I am not convinced that the
critics do either. They don't seem to offer me any empirical evidence
that this is so, but rely on theories that ignore the need for empirical
evidence by simply claiming that the market is the primary explanatory
tool of history. Such idealism doesn't convince me. I want to see the
real evidence in the empirical arena, not the theoretical reductionism
to simple and untestable principles.

To create a non-specific mass of energy called the market is what causes the
definitional problems. The market has a great many facets to it from barter
to cash. The market is the dealers and it is also the collectors and most
importantly it is the artists. These are three moving parts which create
endless variations.

When Hyppolite was decorating doors and walls and the sides of houmforts he
was trading skills for other things whether money, food, rum or healing herbs.
When he was selling works to Peters it wasn't so different AS LONG AS he
remained true to his muse. I know from certain people who were there that
Peters did sometimes try to change the direction of certain artists work in
order to be more commercial. I would also venture to say that there was
a period when there was not much differentiation in buyer's eyes between this
work and crafts.

For some reason people persist in equating art with poverty. The purest
artist is one whose work does not sell.

We see it here all the time. An artist is cool till he gets a gallery then he
is a sell-out. I do feel however that in certain African-American cultures
the role of the artist is a community one more often than an artworld one.
Making art is a way of making a living and it is integrated into the cultural
world. It is the artworld that makes it into something else.

To go any further into faith vs. market we have to step into a minefield; that
of authenticity and quality etc. If the artist is one of true artistic
intention then faith paints the painting and the artist sells it. If the
artist is a hack then he will be told what to paint regardless of his faith.
Yes there are many artists who paint Vodou who are not believed for one reason
or another you can tell. And you know what else? The ones who are shamming
it are usually not very good at all because they lack the vision that drives
their work into the passionate realm of art. This isn't only a problem with
Haiti it is universal. Can I tell you how many slides I get of artists
telling me they are outsiders or folk artists or self-taught because they have
heard that is what might be selling? We haven't been fooled yet.

People in Haiti need to make money. Period. Some paint. This is not the
issue of Haitian Art. This is the issue of our own criteria. The truth is
that there would be a drop-off if the paintings weren't selling but the
artists who are left would be painting because they need to and those are the
ones I would pay attention to.

Again this is not about whether I would like them. This art gets made whether
or not there is a market. It is the tree falling in the forest. And when it
is not made on board or canvas or iron it is made on walls, on the ground, in
the cooking pot, in the ritual or in song. The market is an after-effect.